UKIPT5 London: Piotr Tuczynski tops Day 1B field

When a tournament has two starting days, in the absence of some natural disaster you can basically bet your house on the second starting day attracting a larger field than the opening flight. But what about when there are three start days as there are here at UKIPT5 London, is this bet still such a banker?

If today's evidence is anything to go on then the answer to that question is a big fat resounding yes! In total 244 players chose Day 1B as their start day of choice, which surpassed the Day 1A field size of 143 by over a 100 players. That takes the total number of runners so far to 387 and (here comes the maths bit) represented a 70% increase for Day 1B from Day 1A. If we get a similar day on day increase tomorrow then the total field size will just creep over the 800 mark..

Tuczynski is in pole position

Of the players who started today only 73 (29%) made it through and the player who fared best of all over the first dozen levels was Piotr Tuczynski. The Pole finished with 332,100 to eclipse the 265,000 the Lawrence Bayley accumulated on Day 1A. Like Bayley though this tournament marks a rare foray into the live arena for the Warsaw based player: "I used to play a lot of poker not as much these days. Most of the poker I play is online. I am not a live player!" he told the PokerStars Blog after play was over.

If he were to cash in this tournament it'd significantly increase the $167 of live earnings he currently has and he was in bullish mood at the end of play when asked about his day at the felt. "It was good, I was pretty lucky but there were no big pots, I won a lot of hands without showdown. I am confident for the rest of the tournament."

Other players who'll take big stacks into Day 2 are James Dorrance (247,000) Gabriel Carter (206,100), Angelo Milioto (183,100) and Pratik Ghatge (168,900) as they all enjoyed profitable days at the felt.

A typically swingy day for Shallow

For much of the day Dave Shallow was amongst the top stacks in the room. A talented player, Shallow has almost $500,000 in lifetime earnings in the live arena but has won more than that in a single tournament on PokerStars and has two WCOOP bracelets to his name.

As anyone who's played against Shallow will attest to he plays an expansive fly-by-the -seat-of-your-pants style of poker and sometimes what goes up must go down. He ended the day with 62,900, which may be below average, but at least he's here to fight another day as are: Kevin Allen (132,200) and JJ Hazan (91,300). They'll both be back for Day 2 at 11am on Saturday.

Ward - wamboozled

Whilst there were no players representing the Red Spade today there were plenty with previous on the UKIPT. Not all of those found further success though. Thomas Ward - who with 12 - holds the record for the most cashes on the UKIPT couldn't stay in the hunt for cash number 13 and he exited towards the end of the day.

He lasted longer than the man who beat him to the UKIPT3 London title though as an early accident with kings, against Rumit Somaiya's ace-king, left Sergio Aido short on chips (and luck) and he exited during level five.

The Spaniard wasn't the only UKIPT champion to bust on Day 1B though as UKIPT3 Newcastle winner Chris Ferguson (not that one) couldn't get anything going. And the Ludovic Geilich show was cancelled after eight levels, but not before he'd managed to double his starting stack. The Scotsman's in good company on the rail though as: Leon Louis, Charles Carrel, Jerome Bradpiece, Gareth Teatum, Andrew Hulme, Tamer Kamel and Daiva Barauskaite were among those who were sent packing.

Geilich - gone

To catch up on all today's action and for overnight chip counts click on the links below. We'll be back for the third and final starting flight at 11am GMT. It's going to be busy.